Computer networks may involve dozens or hundreds of computing devices, each operating various software applications. Also referred to as configuration items, computing devices and applications may support and/or facilitate higher-level or end-to-end services. As such, network tools can be used to discover and identify configuration items operating within a network as well as the connectivity between configuration items in order to process and convey the current environment of the network.
In some applications, network tools may represent information about the configuration items as well as their associations using a set of web portals, services, and applications available to particular devices. For instance, configuration items information may be graphically represented as nodes with the connectivity of these configuration items represented as edges extending between nodes.
In some cases, however, the amount of information associated with the configuration items may become too large for the communication channels used by the network tools. In particular, the communication channels may not have the capacity to receive information pertaining to a payload of a large number of configuration items discovered within a network.